


Out Of Phase

by ReaderJane



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-23
Updated: 2011-10-23
Packaged: 2017-10-25 02:01:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/270496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaderJane/pseuds/ReaderJane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Willow forms a plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out Of Phase

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: summer between BtVS S5 and S6  
> Written for the sb_fag_ends challenge, Mortifex:Skeleton Army  
> Disclaimer: still not mine, alas

"It had to happen sometime." Xander dodged yet another cutlass. "Sunnydale gets everything sooner or later, right?" He swung his axe. Bone chips flew, but the onslaught continued. "And now I'm in the middle of a Harryhausen movie."

"Harryhausen?" Willow continued hurling zaps of purple lightning. She sounded a little distracted. "The sushi place?"

"You're thinking Monsters, Incorporated." Xander narrowly missed being decapitated. He put his back against a stack of lumber and continued to swing. "That was an homage. Ray Harryhausen, the guy who invented stop-motion filmmaking in the 20's?" He tried not to notice the empty eye sockets of the monster in front of him. "Remember Jason and the Argonauts? They fought a crew of--"

"Skeleton!" Anya shouted. Xander jumped left just in time to avoid a dead warrior dropping towards him from above.

"Less jaw, more smiting," Spike called from the other side of the construction lot. He tossed aside a blazing 2x4. Seemed the skeleton soldiers were not vulnerable to fire as vampires were. Spike seized a metal pipe from a stack of plumbing supplies and began swinging at bony arms and heads.

"What I want to know is," Xander continued. "How dead do we have to kill them before they stop trying to kill us back?" He chopped at a foot, hoping he could at least immobilize the fiends. "I mean, Dead Boy there keeps moving without a pulse, but stake him through the heart and he'd be a goner." He knocked an ivory skull off its vertebrae. The headless creature continued to flail its sword aimlessly. "These guys don't have hearts to stake. How the hell do we stop them?"

Anya had resorted to throwing small paving bricks. "You're thinking in terms of binary states." Toss, smash. A skeleton broke into limbs and a trunk. The jaws continued to snap. "Things aren't always one hundred percent dead or alive, especially near a Hellmouth. Given the right application of mystical forces, any creature that's been alive can be moved to a different state of animation."

Willow wrinkled her forehead. "A different state..."

"A little help here!" Spike was fighting off two sword-wielding skeletons at once. Willow quickly shot a bolt of lightning that exploded the one on the left. Spike yelped and leaped back as the tail of his duster caught fire.

Willow continued her thought. "Like a phase transition. Gas to liquid to solid, dead to..."

Anya shot her a quick glance. "Let's concentrate on the battle at hand, huh?"

Xander whooped. He had found a chain saw left behind by the construction workers. The air filled with a mechanical snarl as he pulled the starter cord.

"These things can't fight if they're cut to toothpicks, I bet." Xander advanced on the nearest skeleton and took off its hand at the wrist. He made short work of the anatomical monster, carving its joints apart with sweeps of his chainsaw.

Anya made sure Spike was in no danger of catching on fire, then pulled Willow aside as the men dispatched the rest of the skeletons. "Phase transitions are very dangerous. I hope you're not planning what I think you're planning."

"I think I know how to do it," Willow whispered. "There's a ritual with Osiris and an urn..."

"Look, I want Buffy back as much as-- well, not as much as some people, but a lot. Having her around would make Xander safer." Anya lowered her voice still further. "Just be sure, Willow. I'll help you find supplies, but don't say anything to Dawn or Giles until you're sure."

"Don't worry. Giles would just try to stop me, and I would never want to disappoint Dawnie."

"And Spike?"

The two of them looked over at Spike and Xander, crowing together as Xander sliced the last skeleton into a pile of dry shards.

"Him either," Willow answered. "If anything goes wrong, he'd... I don't know what he'd do. We'll tell him when it's all over. He'll be happy as long as Buffy's back."

"Don't be so sure."

Willow looked quizzically at Anya, but the guys were ready to go home then, so she tabled the thought for another day.


End file.
